FLOOD WARNINGS IN NORTHERN TEXAS. 102.1 STAR FM. Hours. It would be a long night. Downpour, and you wondered if Mom and Dad would know what to do. Hazards blinked a string of slow, slow, slowing stops in a breakdown lane a few miles past Fort Worth.
Rippling down your windshield, splattering and splashing, in whooshes of your loose wipers. Hard. Lightning flashed in your peripheral vision, blindingly brightened a vast landscape; pelting rainfall, as if a God had torn open your sky.
Torrentials in Texas.
It'd end up a vague story I told in New York City.
Dirt Nasty had always echoed off odd sounds, cranking, clanking, hiccuping, coughing, but I remember a puncturing pattern, indentations, pulsing off flimsy glass. Headlights gleaming, and I could see streaks inside its lining, a broken seal, Wes would say.
Slowly, I kept going. Most didn't stop. Anybody pulled over must be a foreigner, a tourist, a non-native to Texas. Blend in. If you pull over, you're a target, you're obviously in unfamiliar terrain, you're being pushed aside by a harmless storm...
So, you didn't stop; you kept going, wavering, avoiding blurry taillights of people you'll never know. So, you pulled yourself off, rickety, slip-skidding to an Exit for a Love's. Everything slowing and softening, letting up. It's always a winding road off, lit by tiny, blinking lights from a fleet of big rigs; unwinding down, down, down, to a brimming, bustling building—dispersed parking spots, humming from a centerfold of idling semis, burning fuel and fumes, diesel-doused darkness. Rain sleeting across your vision forcefully.
Everything was flat. A tornado in a distant daze, edging further from your Love's. Crank, as you jerked into P, yanked your keys. Snuffed a VTEC. Everything dead-ended, went still, a deafening downpour beating at your windshield, breaking down into a drumming chill: Dirt Nasty off.
I'd lost my appetite in Virginia, I think.
Drowsily, you crawled into the backseat of your soldiering Civic. Kicked your bare feet up on your console, pressed your cheek against your cloudy-dark window. Pounding. It rattled your rib cage, stirred your heart, to curl up in a corner by yourself, wait out a flood... alone in Wichita Falls.
When you'd remember Wes. It seemed dusky, grainy, whirling distantly, vaguely, a rip in a greying sky. Tornados. I'd never seen anything quite... like it. Wes would love it.
Drip.
Cold. Quiet.
Drip. Drip.
Your windshield caving in. Wichita fucking Falls.
Rain trickled across your dashboard, a heavy gust slamming into your side panel, howling at you. Screeching. Blurs. But you'd learned to ignore it, forget it.
I sank deeper, shimmied under an old blanket; a duffel bag strewn open, chilly fabric coating my clammy skin, damp discomfort seeping into my system. Okay. Okay. No.
Rubbing your hands furiously. Blowing hot air into your palms. You'd gotten used to shivering yourself to sleep slowly.
It could be cozy.
Somehow, Dirt Nasty had become yours and your only. Home was in an '02 Honda Civic. Homage. Nostalgia. All you had left.
My eyes drooping. Slowly. Softly.
Nobody could hurt you. Keys between your knuckles as you dozed off, listening to it lull. Drips ricocheting, spitting at your bare feet, icy pinpricks on your ankles. It lulled. Leaking. I winced, burrowing further, sighing heavily. Ignore it. Forget it.
Darkness. My lashes flitting. Everything humming and vibrating beneath you, echoing pangs, downpour, but you didn't know. I didn't care.
How long had you been trying to... sleep?
I didn't know when it happened, why it happened. It was flighty. Confidence. Fear. It felt as if I'd run into a roadblock, head-on, barricaded surrealistically, never touching anything long enough to exist anywhere.
You just... stopped existing. America was vast, unpredictable, unwilling, and I hadn't found myself in it. I told you. It will find you. Something will shift, I don't know if I could've warned myself.
Something burning hot and high and hazy, unnaturally, violently. Dead. Falling asleep, remembering. Red. Black. Something quiet stole your heart.
You woke up.
Everything saturated, sleep-encrusted, blurring when I blinked, blinked, blinked, and saw her. Mirroring. Her body curled up in the backseat of a cluttered Civic. Her nose inches from my lips, lashes soft and silky, silvery hues of flood lighting from Love's.
I blinked, and I... I saw her again, all opaque vagueness, bloodshot irises, pallid skin, a jagged grin, slinking closer, closer, closer... morphing... its beady eyes, broken hands, offering a place to disappear into, a darkness to dissolve into...
